New laws possible over 
hospital abuse scandal

Tougher regulation including possible new criminal legislation to strengthen corporate accountability could be introduced in the wake of the abuse scandal at the Winterbourne View private hospital.

Care Services Minister Norman Lamb said the case revealed weaknesses in the system’s ability to hold leaders of care organisations to account.

Under the plans, proposals to hold boards, directors and senior managers accountable for the safety and quality of care their organisations provide, including exploring whether tougher regulatory or criminal sanctions are necessary, will be brought forward by spring next year.

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The Government also plans to move out of long stay hospital every person with a learning disability or autism who does not need to be there.

All patients will have their case reviewed by June next year with a view to moving anyone “inappropriately” in hospital into community-based support by June 2014. There are 3,400 people in NHS-funded learning disability inpatient beds of which around 1,200 are in assessment and treatment units.

“I want this to be seen as a moment when there is a collective view that there needs to be a substantial culture change in society, that people with learning disabilities have the same rights as anybody else,” Mr Lamb said.

In October six members of staff – four support workers and two nurses – were jailed for between six months and two years for their roles in the abuse at the hospital in Hambrook, South Gloucestershire. Five others were given suspended prison sentences.

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BBC’s Panorama exposed the scandal last year when it broadcast shocking secret footage of abuse.

The Department of Health’s report yesterday said Care Quality Commission inspections of nearly 150 other hospitals and care homes had not found abuse and neglect like that at Winterbourne View. But many of the people at Winterbourne should not have been there in the first place.